Daily Devotions
Psalm 98:7-9 – Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who dwell in it! Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together before the LORD, for He comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.
Every day we experience in our lives the effects of the fall into sin. Sin corrupts and distorts our relationships with one another and with the world in which we live. But how does the world itself, God’s good creation, suffer from the fall into sin? After Adam and Eve ate the fruit forbidden to them, God said, “Cursed is the ground because of you … thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you” (Genesis 3:17b, 18a). The created world will not always provide its gifts for us easily or readily.
The world is still God’s good creation. He cares for the world and its creatures. He appointed us as its managers and caretakers and our Creator still causes “the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate” (Psalm 104:14a). He continues to give us “rains from heaven and fruitful seasons” (Acts 14:17b). Yet all that God made still suffers the terrible impact of the fall into sin. Creation is waiting for the day when it will be set free from death and decay, from “its bondage to corruption” (Romans 8:21b).
God loves the world and the people He created and sent His Son to be our Savior. Through faith in Christ Jesus, with our sins forgiven, we wait for His return—the great day when all things will be made new. Creation is waiting with us, as in its own way it longs for Jesus’ return. All of creation, the apostle Paul writes, is “groaning together in the pains of childbirth” (Romans 8:22b). The entire creation groans, perhaps through its storms and floods and earthquakes, as it awaits the “blessed event” of our Lord’s return. When Jesus comes back, we will be raised to life and God will create a “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13b). Our psalm invites all of creation to share our joy on that day: “Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together before the LORD, for He comes to judge the earth.”
In the new creation there will be no more groaning, no pain or death. We do not know exactly what the newly created world of Genesis was like before the fall into sin, although we still enjoy so many of its wonders today. God described that created world—the world in which we now live—as very good (see Genesis 1). On a day still to come, in a world made new, we will live in the presence of our Savior forever. We can be sure that it will be very good!
WE PRAY: Jesus, with all of creation I long for Your return. Amen.
This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Carol Geisler.
Reflection Questions:
1. Do you think our sinfulness causes us to view creation in a way that’s less than God intended?
2. What do you think the new heavens and earth will be like after Jesus returns?
3. How can we be good caretakers of God’s creation? What can you do now?